LinkedIn limits its targeted ads based on sensitive personal data to comply with the Digital Services Act (DSA).

LinkedIn announces it is shutting down its tool for sending targeted ads to European users after receiving a complaint about non-compliance with the Digital Services Act (DSA). Until now, advertisers could follow LinkedIn groups to create targeted ads for EU users, but this is not in line with the Digital Services Act (DSA), according to a collective of civil society groups. LinkedIn announced it would shut down this feature immediately.

LinkedIn Groups

From now on, advertisers will no longer be able to track LinkedIn users based on LinkedIn group names, wrote Patrick Corrigan, LinkedIn’s vice president of law, in a blog post. The tool allows users to create groups around a specific topic or join existing groups, making these groups a source of personally sensitive information such as political views or gender identity.

Although LinkedIn itself denies that such sensitive information of European users is used for targeted advertising, it is nevertheless ending this feature in order to comply with the DSA. Since the beginning of this year, this type of information can no longer be used for targeted advertising according to the DSA.

Voluntary termination

Although LinkedIn took the step of voluntarily disabling this feature, it was preceded by a complaint from a collective of social groups about three months ago.

The European Commission then wrote to LinkedIn asking it to provide further information on how to enable targeted advertising based on sensitive information. This letter was the only response, and LinkedIn has since announced that the position is being closed.